One More Night
by FrostedFox816
Summary: Fred and Connor have more in common than they would ever like to admit, and the others can't know what's going on. A dark fic and a strange pairing, but  the cure for boredom is curiosity...
1. Ruin it All

Try as she might, she's unable to speak. He places his hand on her cheek, delicate. It unnerves her. One break in the continuum of time and this is what she has. Confusion at who he is now, because she never really knew who he was before.

Fred wanted to, she dreamed of watching him turn into someone, but it fell apart before her-all of their-eyes. Until now. Now Connor was someone beyond anyone's control but his own, and he had chosen to come to her room, out of a whole hotel, her room.

She flicked her eyes up, not knowing how to handle the contact, he had never touched her, not after his return. He had barely looked at her, except when she was with Charles, which he watched with curious eyes. The only love that he had seen, that he remembered.

Her bed is unmade, like everything is. Her dark little heaven at the top of the stairs. His eyes flick around, pushing-and not pushing- his way in. He slips past her and sits on her bed, his head momentarily in his hands before reexamining the room, not missing the spaces in the wall where he can see through the paint to the ravings of someone completely out of her element. Like him.

She doesn't turn around, Connor can see only her back. It's hurts him that she isn't coming to him, helping him. That's what people do, they console him about something they know nothing about.

But Fred knows. They both know it. Connor wonders if she can tell that he can see her never ending pain. He wonders if she can even see it in herself. She had five years in hell, he had eighteen. He was never a slave in his home dimension. No, this was his home dimension.

She finally turned to him, placing herself on the other side of the bed, unsure of what to do with herself. He drops to his knees, his eyes meeting hers, pleading for her to help him. He is lost in this dimension.

His eyes shatter her, they always have. She was the one who was there in that dark alley. It was only Angel, Fred and Darla... and then Connor. This couldn't be happening to her, but the look of loss on his face was too much for her. She remembered it clearly. Saying that she wouldn't wish that feeling on her worst enemy was an understatement. She can't bear to see anyone endure it.

"Please, please..." She speaks the words on his lips. They're both suffering and he is suddenly sorry he came here. He wasn't thinking. He is only hurting her, but he can't leave.

"I- I can change this world for you." His assurance shocks even himself. "I'll kill who you hate. Please, love. Please." She breaks. He watches it in her, he watches her break before him and a sick satisfaction comes to him from knowing he has done that. He hates himself in this moment.

She slips back onto the bed, falling backwards, her hair splaying out beneath her. He stands up, looking down on her frame. He sits on the edge again, looking over her body and at her face. Her eyes are closed, not screwed shut like he expected, but almost as if she were asleep.

"You'll ruin it all." Her words are barely a warning, more of an acceptance of fact. He slides his hands towards her. She wears a thick dress, almost a sweater, as if she was freezing while she got dressed. His hands are beneath her, he remembers watching her at the door. He starts with her back, because that is what he can see when she's breaking his heart.

Most of Fred knows that she is bleeding him empty solely because he's a man. It infuriates her, how he could be one person one day and months later be someone entirely new. It is the experience she wished she had gained from Pylea, but she remained weak while he became strong.

Afterwards, they lie separately under the duvet. Farther apart than they have ever felt. Connor is isolated within himself, this hadn't worked as he had expected it to. Fred silently loathes herself for what she has done. She turns to him, her movement forcing him into reality, he meets her eyes.

She tells him the only thing she can, she tells him she wish he would die. She knows she'll never touch him again, and she knows he won't give up on her, but no. This was one night. One more night in a lifetime of horrors, one more night, but it was a good one.

And she will never forgive herself for that.


	2. By the Light in the Hall

Your heart's a mess. You won't admit to it. It makes no sense, but I'm desperate to connect. And you, you can't live like this.

It was almost midnight when Angel knocked on Fred's door. She hadn't been sleeping and he could hear the sound of her uneven breathing through the door. Without waiting for a response, Angel opened the door. Fred was half under the blankets and half out; shivering. She didn't formally acknowledge his presence, but he could tell that she knew he was there. She whimpered a little, and he felt his own pain contained in the sound. As sick as it was, he could smell every being who had been in that room. It was a symptom of his disease, and the truth was verified in his mind.

He approached her bed. Gunn was out; visiting his people on the street, helping at the shelter. She was tiny in the large bed. He lay down beside her. Over the blankets, on his back. She could feel his conscience effort to not be intrusive. She turned over towards him, she felt safe with Angel. He was a good man. He was unburdened by feelings beyond friendship for her. She burrowed closer to him, unwilling to release any more tears. She just wanted comfort. Desperate to connect.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He could sense the pain. Connor had done this to her. She was fine before he intruded into her life, into her memories. She had always been fragile on the subject of being trapped in other dimensions, she had always associated Connor with that pain. Of course she was coming apart.

"Fred... Fred? You should come with me now." He tried to be as gentle as he could; he needed to help her, and he couldn't do it here. She nodded into him.

"I wasn't sleeping anyways." She tried to rise from the bed, Angel assisted by lifting her up, supporting her as they left the room. He got her downstairs and sat her down across from his desk.

"You have to tell me what happened." She shook her head, not him. "You have to tell me or you have to tell Wes." She wouldn't. "You're a mess Fred. You need help." She cringed and nodded.

"I needed help, Angel" she countered. "I've always needed help. No one wanted to help."

"Connor can't help you. He can only help himself and disguise it." Fred looked at the floor, at her hands, anywhere else.

"I know," she spoke to the carpet. "He needed me." Angel nodded in concern. She resolved not to say anything else. "I'm tired now."

"No you're not."

"Don't leave me alone." Tears edged her voice. "Please, please don't leave me alone."

He took her to his room this time, he placed her on his bed and sat himself in a chair against the wall. Light filtered in from the hall. He wanted to rebuild her by it, to fix her.

"You don't have to do that," she offered. "Come here. Come sleep here." He went to the bed, lying away from her. Fred had other ideas. Her hand made it's way under his shirt, tracing patterns on his skin.

"Don't." He was final. "You don't want that."

"I don't know what I want. What do I want?" It was a sincere question.

"You don't want me, and you don't want Connor." He was pleading, he was truly wishing that he was correct.

But she wondered.


	3. They'll Never be Friends

She still had the truth buried within her. Everyone could feel the tension rolling off of her. The exception being Connor. Too busy navigating his own emotions, he didn't notice that Fred was falling apart before him. Because of him.

Wesley found himself especially concerned. Every moment alone with her he spent brainstorming ways to find out what was bothering her. How to help her.

His hand rested on Fred's knee. His eyes peering into the depths of her own. She was afraid that he would be able to see what she had done, what she dreamed of each night; What she wanted.

Her fear was hardly irrational, Wesley's hand reached up to her face in a motion too similar to a memory of Connor, but instead of touching her face; he pushed her hair aside-revealing an all too recognizable mark on her neck.

He had left marks on her skin. He had left marks because he was young and confused and passionate. Then again, so was she. Once.

"What is this?" Wesley touched it lightly, his face growing concerned. 'Poor Wes,' Fred thought. 'So naive.'

"I don't know." She feigned her own concern. He grabbed more of her hair, examining the rest of her neck.

"How have you been feeling lately?" His concern almost caused her pain, almost broke her. She was so tired of breaking. She hung her head and crossed her legs, actions that didn't go unnoticed by Wesley.

Epiphany struck. Not a plan or an escape route, but only the raw truth. She needed help, and if the only way to attain it was in the biggest self destruct of all, she would have to do it. She gave into what all of her nerve endings were screaming at her to do. She shattered into pieces like a crystal art piece falling from a great height. Wesley would feel responsible, would glue together the pieces of Fred.

Sobs began to rack her body as she collapsed onto her knees from the chair; curling in on herself, hiding her face. Wesley joined her on the ground. He pulled her into his arms, pressing her face against his shoulder as her sobs only grew more intense. Her body was shaking in such a way that must have been causing her physical pain. It was as if she was so full of sorrow that her body couldn't keep up. Like being killed by a fever only trying to kill the virus.

He began to rock her; to stroke her hair and try to calm her. He didn't know if it was better to let her get it out or to slow it down, so he went with his gut that was telling him that he wouldn't be able to handle her in such forceful pain for much longer. When the sobs had subsided to the point where she could speak again, he contemplated asking her what was wrong. He was afraid of the answer and what the question would do to her, so instead he continued with the rocking and quiet murmurs of positivity.

A few minutes went by like this, the atmosphere eventually interrupted by Fred's repeated chant of "I'm sorry." He shushed her; he told her he would have none of that. He looked down at her just as she looked up, his eyes full of love and hers frenzied. She tilted her head back into his chest and began to quietly cry, the chanting beginning again.

It was this sight that Connor walked into, this sight that drove him back out of the room. It was this sight that forced him outside of the hotel and against the wall, breathing heavily with what he decided was rage. The problem was that he didn't know who to be angry at. Fred wasn't his, was never his. Fred wasn't Wesley's either, but he treated her like she was. Fred wasn't his father's, but it was he who they both feared the night before. Fred wasn't even Gunn's. Fred belonged to no one. Was he the only one to see that?

If anyone ever wanted her to get over her time in Pylea, they would have to stop treating her as cattle. If anyone ever wanted him to get over his childhood in Quor'toth, they would have to stop treating him as a child. It should be so simple.

He wanted to be friends. He didn't know what that made him; naive, foolish, it was all the same. He wanted to have friends and he wanted Fred to be one of them. He dreamed it. A world without his father watching over them both, a world where Wesley left her alone and Gunn was away helping others. Just the two of them together-happy. The fantasy caused him pain, they would never be completely happy. They'll never be friends. Wesley and Angel both knew she was suffering. Hell, everyone except Connor seemed to know. They would take care of her. He knew as well as she did that no one else would ever be able to understand, not the way he did, but he had caused them both nothing but pain. He would leave her to rebuild her life, desolate and without understanding, but at least numb.


	4. So Good When it Ends

Connor sat on the stairs, unwilling to join the team but never going far from the fight. No one was in the lobby at the moment so he was alone in his own reverie. It was Angel who broke it by approaching. Angel, who was the one person-or not-that Connor feared. He was the only one who knew what had happened, save for Fred, though she had been cold to him lately. As if she too had no idea.

Angel stood in front of Connor. Above him. Almost standing over him, though the horizontal distance between them made their eyes hit about even. Connor tried to hide his surprised expression by giving his head a small tilt, antagonistically questioning Angels sudden appearance.

Fred found herself lost, it was strange to her how one person could spin her out of control like this. She was stronger than that, but it was the memories of Pylea that got to her. Her one weakness. None of them could see how affected she was by the memories, except Connor. It was the knowledge that someone else could read her that did it, she thought. It's his fault for knowing her pain, for treating her as if it was real.

Just as seeing her parents again had proven that Pylea was real, that her life had actually happened, and just how unnatural it was.

She never wanted to be affected this much by one person.

"What happened the other night..."

"Had nothing to do with you," Connor finished.

"Fred's suffering now, you'd have to be blind if you can't see it," Angel looked his son straight in the eye as he spoke.

"She needed me," Connor replied.

"Did she, or was it the other way around?" Angel saw Connor flinch, he had hit a nerve.

"I didn't mean-"

"To hurt her? To break her? To kill her? What you don't mean to do keeps happening, doesn't it?"

"It was one night. You don't even know what happened," Connor's eyes blazed. "I went to her room, she fucked like a tease. I told her I would kill her enemies, she told me she wanted me dead. This isn't one of those situations you can turn into good versus bad, it's not black and white."

This was too much for Angel. He couldn't listen to his son speak like this about anyone, let alone Fred. Innocent Fred. He turned away.

"Don't make me the bad guy because you think you understand me. You understand me about as much as you understand Fred. You don't."

"Are you telling me to blame her for what happened?"

"I'm telling you to leave both of us alone! Why do you feel the need to blame someone. This is sick, Angel. Everything about this is sick," Connor stood up. "She would never let it happen again. She told me that. We can't even be friends now. It's done."

Angel turned to see his son stalking up the stairs, and noticed a small movement behind a plant. A figure slipping out of sight. He was surprised he hadn't seen her earlier, smelled her tears, heard her pain. He felt slightly ashamed as he watched Fred slip away from the scene.

Connor's last words were still in his head when Angel realized that Connor had more than screwed the situation up. Fred was reliant on Connor. This would have to be fixed. It was then that Angel made up his mind.

This was all going to end.


	5. One More Night

It was she who came to him this time.

Fuck, he thought. How was he supposed to deal with this? If everything is a mess, and everything was a mess, then it couldn't get worse, right?

All he could hope for was the solace. Momentary, perhaps, but fleeting as it was, it was all he had.

She knocked on his door, timidly-the Fred that everyone else saw. That was, after all, who she was. He had confused the persona she had put on for him for her actual self, and he was wrong. She is the quiet, timid, and shy girl that everyone views her to be.

It was Connor that didn't know her at all.

Sometimes the stronger one isn't the true one. He didn't extrapolate that evidence beyond Fred, he couldn't.

* * *

><p>Angel had watched Fred go up the stairs. He knew where she was going, she wasn't able to hide much from him. As formulaic as their life had become, he could feel the change in the flow of things. It was surprisingly unfaltering. Maybe this would become part of something larger, but Angel was not going to stand by and watch as Connor and Fred destroy themselves.<p>

He followed her up the stairs. He heard the mumble of conversation from inside Fred's door, he heard the soft intake of breath. He was about to step inside, stop the act, when he realized that an aura of...positivity was flowing from the room. He wasn't expecting that.

He turned away before he could hear something he didn't want to, he looked down at himself, at the floor. If it was self-destructive behavior, he would have felt obligated to stop it. But that was not what this was. He was at a loss.

* * *

><p>She was smaller than he was. He was younger, though he never felt by much. Her body was so small beneath his, she had more experience than he did, but she never showed it. She allowed him to be in charge, tonight she was less distant than their last meeting. She was with him, tonight she made eye contact.<p>

The whole event became more than solace, Connor could almost call it fun. It was something he had never experienced before, happiness and sex didn't go together.

Fred had released everything, her feelings for Wesley and Gunn, her feelings of loss. Everything was gone, because they both deserved something real.

The first time was a mistake, they both knew that. It was Fred who had realized that it wasn't the act itself, but the way they both handled it. What if it was a stepping stone to something good?

And the decision that was made for the aftermath wasn't going to be some form of self punishment, they have had enough of that. It was going to be a fresh start.

* * *

><p>Wesley was looking for Fred. He wandered about the hotel, knocked on her door and even phoned Gunn. She never went anywhere on her own. He sat on the pouf, not bothered, but bored. Without Fred he had no one to talk to.<p>

Moments later she came down the stairs. No one who hadn't seen her in the past week would describe her as joyful, but Wesley could. He smiled at her, she smiled back and came down the stairs, her pace speeding up. She breezed right up to him and he resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her. She wore a summer dress, her hair was down and messy.

She thought, 'Well, he's always been naive.' He thought she looked more beautiful than anything he had ever seen.

Upstairs, Connor sat on his bed. His expression was vacant until he remembered her final words to him. She had told him that he had saved her. She had told him that they both had clean slates now. She had told him that Angel would not bring it up again, and she told him that this would never, ever happen again.

When he remembered her words, he smiled.

Three weeks later it rained fire.

* * *

><p><em>Thank you to michellealx8 for the inspiration to continue. There were a lot of times when I thought I would end it, but I was reminded of how much fun the pairing actually is to write, plus she inspired me with ideas that I didn't really think of. I hope I did you proud.<em>


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